The Fox and the Mermaid Date Thursday, April 25, 2024 - 12:58 AM PST Topic Experiences I remember dying pretty god damned well, and I remember I didn’t much like it…not really. Of course I wanted to at first, all I could think about was dying, leaving. I’ve always been good at running away, as brave as I’ve ever acted; I’m the worst sort of coward at heart. This was my way of running as far away as fucking possible. When I started my walks, I was a wretched little boy, and as I ended them…I realized I was a wretched little boy who thought he had become a man. Kinda’ ridiculous really, although even now I can’t laugh at it, not even bitterly. It wasn’t pleasant, although painful isn’t the word I’d use to describe it. I saw what lay beyond, and in my case…it wasn’t fucking pretty. No fires, no weird little babies in red pajamas sticking pitchforks in my ass. Definitely no pearly fucking gates, no second or third chances. You know what was waiting for me? Fucking nothing. Not even darkness…when I went past, I wouldn’t even be able to float in the shadows and sing show tunes to myself, just sheer nothingness. It isn’t a concept I could grasp easily then and it sure as hell isn’t one I like to think about now. Nothing…a total and absolute oblivion, I got my mouthful of it…and even that brief drink wiped away parts of me for good or ill. I’d dived in, and found the water a fuck of a lot deeper and scarier than I had ever dreamed. All sorts of shit flooded past me then, girls, guys, friends and enemies. I wouldn’t say my life flashed before my eyes then. I didn’t really have any eyes, and it wasn’t my life. It was my regrets, my sins…all the parts of me that I loathed, and there was a lot about me that I fucking loathed. They just sort of whipped by, and careened into oblivion. Bye bye me… And then she came…my mermaid. As far as I can figure, the feeling was like getting yanked out of a tar pit by the hair, jarring and sudden. One minute I’m tilting over the edge…the next, wham! Everything fucking changes…and I’m in someone’s arms. It was weird…sort of like a dream. I wasn’t me, well…not two legged handsome devil me. I was the real me, small, furry, easily spooked and real clever about getting away. If I’m not mistaken, I was a fox…a small, miserable, frightened and waterlogged fox. But she held my head above the dark waters, with the gentlest arms. When I looked up, I recognized her goddamn near instantly…I knew her, I knew her so very well. She looked down at me, with a face that was so freaking pretty it made my ears twitch and my tail curl up. Classic friggin’ mermaid…no shit. One minute I’m dying for real, the next I was a fox being held by an honest to god fucking mermaid. She had a tail from the mid-thigh down, that looked sorta’ like a cross between a fish’s and a dolphins…and she was made out of all these different colors. Her scent though, it was her scent that pounded me between the fucking eyes. I knew her…I had made her smile once a long time ago. I had played my foxy games, dug around and danced and played once long ago, and I had made my mermaid smile. Then something scared me, and like the coward I was I ran…I ran as far as I could and never stopped. I even played Coyote for the longest time, but it was all just an illusion. She saved me though…she held me there, and kept my head above the water, and she sang to me…sang softly and sweetly, and made all the hurt go away. She smoothed my fur and took the tangles from my tail…and even my feet stopped being so bloody and raw. I was so weak, that if she had let go…I would have slipped back into nothing with only a whimper…but she never let go, she never had… I was still hurt, and I was still afraid…I always would be, I guess it’s just my nature, but…it was different now. I didn’t need to run away anymore, not from my mermaid. She patched me together, and sang me a song, and held my head above the water. She never stopped…although I found myself walking on two legs before too long. It was kind of funny really…as far as I had run; I ran all the way back. I’m still a waterlogged, ridiculous looking fox…but it doesn’t matter anymore, because my mermaid still holds my head above the water. Maybe my eyes are a little hollow now…but that’s the price I had to pay, and I bear it. Take this, as you will, as a dream, a metaphor or a vision it doesn’t really matter. As far as I care though…it certainly is. More than anything else is…and not a moment goes by where I don’t hear her song. If she ever let go, I’d slip back beneath the waves…but mermaids don’t ever let that happen. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=487